The End Of Reform
Subtitle: New Deal Liberalism in Recession and War
Publisher: Vintage
Published: January 30, 1996
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 384
ISBN-13: 9780679753148
Subjects: Liberalism & centre democratic ideologies; United States - 20th Century/WWII; History - U.S; Politics/International Relations; Public Policy - Economic Policy; Political Science / Economic Policy
First sentence: EVEN FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT must ultimately have realized, looking back on the frustrations of his second term as president, that by the end of 1937 the active phase of the New Deal had largely come to an end.
Description: When Franklin D. Roosevelt and his Democratic party won a landslide victory in the 1936 elections, the way seemed open for the New Deal to complete the restructuring of American government it had begun in 1933. But, as Alan Brinkley makes clear, no sooner were the votes counted than the New Deal began to encounter a series of crippling political and economic problems that stalled its agenda and forced an agonizing reappraisal of the liberal ideas that had shaped it - a reappraisal still in progress when the United States entered World War II. The wartime experience helped complete the transformation of New Deal liberalism. It muted Washington's hostility to the corporate world and diminished liberal faith in the capacity of government to reform capitalism. But it also helped legitimize Keynesian fiscal policies, reinforce commitments to social welfare, and create broad support for "full employment" as the centerpiece of postwar liberal hopes. By the end of the war, New Deal liberalism had transformed itself and assumed its modern form - a form that is faring much less well today than almost anyone would have imagined a generation ago. The End of Reform is a study of ideas and of the people who shaped them: Franklin Roosevelt, Henry Wallace, Harold Ickes, Henry Morgenthau, Jesse Jones, Tommy Corcoran, Leon Henderson, Marriner Eccles, Thurman Arnold, Alvin Hansen. It chronicles a critical moment in the history of modern American politics, and it speculates that the New Deal's retreat from issues of wealth, class, and economic power has contributed to present-day liberalism's travails.